'Kentucky Tonight' TV debate on NKY regional ban proposal

Just watched this earlier tonight, and it was quite interesting, particularly the 2 on the side of property rights(NKY Choice leader and blogger Ken Moellman, and Boone County Commissioner Cathy Flaig). Kenton County Commissioner Kris Knochelmann(just as disappointing as soon-to-retire Kenton Judge-Executive Ralph Drees, the biggest proponent of the NKY ban proposal by far) and NKY Action grassroots coordinator + head of American Lung Association of Kentucky, Betsy Berns Janes, represent the anti-smoking side, not surprisingly.

Commissioner Knochelmann makes the claim in this debate that Kenton and Campbell Fiscal Courts will likely vote on the NKY ban proposal within 60-90 days(depending if minute differences between what some favor in these talks get resolved), despite that the Boone Fiscal Court pulled out of the talks in late July. And never mind that the same rhetoric back around May and June was also being said about when such a vote would happen! I guess we'll see what happens, within the next few months.

Enjoy(go down to 'links' on this page, and 'watch this program online'):
http://www.ket.org/tvschedules/episode.php?nola=KKYTO+001736&cd=1

And of course, the latest draft version of this NKY ordinance that was leaked in early August(as a Microsoft Word document):
http://news.cincinnati.com/assets/AB16200684.DOC

Naaa Naaa Naaa Naaa, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye(to at least one Smoking Ban)

Just as my favorite AL baseball team(Chicago White Sox) always plays whenever an opposing starting pitcher is removed from the game, I figured the catchy title for this post is appropriate after I just caught this news slightly late. Boone County has finally pulled out of the talks for a regional smoking ban proposal in Northern Kentucky, joining Grant County(which includes both Dry Ridge and Williamstown, off of I-75 as you go south of both Boone and Kenton County towards Lexington) in saying no to any misguided regional smoking ban proposals. Looks like Campbell County Judge-Executive Steve Pendery, and soon-to-retire Kenton County Judge-Executive Ralph Drees will lose after all in their pathetic attempts to pass smoking bans for just their own county, even if not the whole NKY region.

Three cheers, and many more, to common sense getting at least one win over anti-smoking zealotry! Hopefully the city councils of Indianapolis(ahem, City-County Council of Indianapolis-Marion County) and San Antonio(both cities are where antis have been doing renewed pushes for citywide bans) will wake up and say no to bans, along with the several places I can think of where smoking ban referendums are already on the November 2010 ballot(San Angelo, TX, Jefferson City, MO, and the state of South Dakota).

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100730/NEWS0103/307300081/Boone-pulls-out-of-smoking-ban-talks

a newspaper editorial calls for NKY Action and ban supporters to release the NKY ban draft proposal

The first article was written yesterday by blogger Paul McKibben, and the 2nd article was an editorial written today from the North Kentucky Enquirer calling for the latest draft of the 3-county NKY ban proposal to be made public immediately. I 100% support the call for it to be made public, not to mention hiding the proposal(except for ban proponents seeing the proposal) is a total violation of both Kentucky's open meetings law, and also their public records law. The editorial also makes a great mention of the fact when 2 competing proposals were put on the ballot in summer 2006 for the November 2006 Ohio statewide election, both state smoking ban proposals were made public before being put on the ballot.

Paul McKibben's blog entry mentioning the appalling secrecy of the draft proposal:
http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=blog25&plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&U=c7553bdc-919b-42b9-9011-baf9c96f7123&plckPostId=Blog%3ac7553bdc-919b-42b9-9011-baf9c96f7123Post%3a2407caee-2261-4960-a699-8e79644447b4&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

North Kentucky Enquirer's editorial calling for the draft to be publicly released:
http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100719/EDIT01/7200358/Ky-smoking-ban-ordinance-clouded-in-secrecy